


you wanna be friends forever (i can think of something better)

by wheezykaspbraks



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Depression, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, HAPPY ENDING I FEEL LIKE I REALLY NEED TO EMPHASISE THAT, Healthy Relationships, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, healthy support systems ftw!!, no sad endings, season 3 never happened, the power of friendship(trademark emoji), theyre very in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 19:51:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20551763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheezykaspbraks/pseuds/wheezykaspbraks
Summary: It’s just past midday on a Saturday in the middle of summer break, and Will thinks that he’s in love. It’s not a new thought — after his firstoh crap I think I love my best friendrealization at thirteen, Will’s spent a good four years coming to terms with it. Somewhere along the way it became a fact of life; the sky is blue, Dungeons and Dragons is the best tabletop game in the world, Will’s entire existence revolves around his undying adoration for Mike Wheeler.in which will loves mike almost as much as he hates himself





	you wanna be friends forever (i can think of something better)

**Author's Note:**

> this has been sitting in my drafts for WAY too long so *john mulaney voice* take your epipen and get out of my google docs! like it says in the tags, s3 never happened, they all got to live normal happy lives after the end of s2 and this picks up several years after that. a lot of will's experiences with his depression are based off my own personal experiences with depressive episodes. i've always loved fics where characters are shown to be Going Through It but they're very clearly still deserving of love & having a healthy support system. while not particularly detailed in the darker aspects of will's depression, if you think that anything in this fic could trigger you, please do yourself a favour and click away now. i'd much rather you take care of yourself than read this fic

It’s just past midday on a Saturday in the middle of summer break, and Will thinks that he’s in love. It’s not a new thought — after his first_ oh crap I think I love my best friend _ realization at thirteen, Will’s spent a good four years coming to terms with it. Somewhere along the way it became a fact of life; the sky is blue, Dungeons and Dragons is the best tabletop game in the world, Will’s entire existence revolves around his undying adoration for Mike Wheeler.

And he doesn’t _ mind _ his crush, exactly. In a way, it almost makes sense. Will’s always been something of a freak, a weirdo, an outsider. He’s too quiet and large crowds make him nervous, he struggles to make eye contact even at the best of times, he finds more comfort locked away in his room drawing away than spending time with others. Of course Will would find himself getting starry-eyed over another boy, Mike Wheeler, who is a boy, and also his best friend, and a boy.

It’s just, sometimes Will can’t breathe. He looks at Mike’s lopsided smile and pretty eyes and freckled cheeks and his breath catches in his throat along with every unspoken _ I love you _ he’s spent years holding back. Not that they don’t say I love you to each other, they all do, even more so after El closed the gate and they realized just how lucky they were to have made it out unscathed a second time around. They say I love you but it’s different. It’s the kind of _ I love you _ that sets Will’s face ablaze at the thought of it, makes his skin feel like it’s stretched too thin across his bones. It’s the same way he feels when he looks up from his sketchbook and catches Mike’s eye, gets a too-bright-too-sweet-too-perfect grin.

Summers in Hawkins are always disgustingly hot, with days spent at the pool and basking in the glorious air conditioning provided by the mall. Steve sneaks them into the cinema through the back door of Scoop’s Ahoy sometimes, and looks the other way when they sneak back out later on. The party have found themselves to be creatures of habit; Max and El split up from the group arm-in-arm with matching mischievous grins that spell trouble for the rest of the mall, Dustin and Lucas wander off affectionately arguing about high scores in the arcade, and Mike and Will — sometimes they head back to the Wheeler’s place, or the Byers’, but lately they’ve found themselves spending their afternoons at Castle Byers more than ever before.

With each passing year, the Castle feels a little more confining, but that doesn’t stop them from spending their free time hiding away from the rest of the world in there.

It was around the fifteen year mark that Mike grew into his awkward too-long legs with all the grace of a newborn puppy stumbling around blind in the world. It’s something Mike has mostly outgrown by now; he still has a penchant for knocking into everything around himself but no longer wakes up with growing pains that he would always complain about in the mornings.

By this point Mike towers over the rest of the party, Max and El included, lords it over them with a dazzling smile that has Will’s chest feeling too warm and too tight and too everything. Sometimes he rests his chin on Will’s head or leans an elbow on a too-bony shoulder or wraps an arm around Will’s waist, and every time Will feels like his skin is too small for all of the ways Mike makes him feel.

The point is, they’re both a little too big to comfortably fit in there, Mike especially. He’s always been a taller-than-average kid and his last growth spurt sent him hovering around the six foot mark. He’s all awkward long gangly legs and he has to hunch to keep his head from hitting the roof, and their knees knock together more often than not, and sometimes Mike stretches out his legs and drapes them over Will’s lap with that sweet smile that has always made Will feel like his lungs are fit to bursting because all he’s ever wanted is to see Mike smile.

Mike spends the afternoon flipping through comics, reads each panel aloud dramatically while Will sketches away. Will has read each copy countless times, and knows without having to look exactly what page Mike is on. Sometimes he’ll chime in with the next line, or one of the various sound effects, before Mike can, and Mike always shoots him a smile before clearing his throat and continuing.

His bag, old and worn through by this point and in desperate need of replacement, is filled to the zipper with his favorite copies of his favorite comics, and Will knows without having to ask that the script from their school’s latest production is shoved somewhere near the bottom of the bag.

No one had been surprised when Mike joined their school’s drama club back in their freshman year; he’d always been a little louder than most, a little more dramatic, a little more willing to be seen. Will knows that when the sun dips out of sight and they pull out their stashed flashlights, Mike will exchange comic books for lines that he will spend hours practicing.

For now, the sun is still high in the sky. There’s light coming in through the gaps of the Castle’s structure, and Will is hooked on the way it makes Mike’s eyes light up — or maybe it’s his smile that does that, bright and dazzling in a way that sends Will’s heart stuttering like it’s going to dance right out of his chest. He’s spent hours, countless hours, practicing shading just to capture the way Mike’s eyes look when the light hits them at that perfect angle, turns them sunlight through whiskey and melted butterscotch, and Will remembers sleepless nights spent thinking to himself that his favourite colour is every breathtaking shade of Mike’s eyes.

He knows every freckle without having to look but he looks anyway, catches himself looking at Mike all the time.

His pencil _ skitch-skitches _ across the page as he does his best to recreate Mike’s hair, always a curly mess but even more so in the mornings. Will determinedly does not think about sinking his fingers into that soft hair, definitely doesn’t think about scratching his nails along the nape of Mike’s neck, most certainly doesn’t think about the way Mike’s voice drops in the morning, a low “mornin’,” when they wake up next to each other in the basement that sometimes feels more like home than his actual house. His fingers tremble for a moment when he thinks about leaning over, kissing the pleased hum Mike makes right from lips that always look way too soft to be real. Will takes a steadying breath, flexes his fingers around the pencil, adds the soft lines that form around Mike’s eyes when he smiles. His cheeks feel way too warm as he fills in the soft swell of Mike’s lower lip and the perfect curve of his cupid’s bow, the dimples that Will has spent entirely too much time thinking about.

Mike’s gentle, “Hey, you alright?” pulls Will away from his thoughts of _ MikeMikeMike_.

Sometimes he feels like his thoughts are an endless loop of _ MikeMikeMike. _

Will smiles like he’s a normal person who isn’t in love with his best friend but it feels wrong, it feels fake, his chest aches with the need to reach out and — anything, hold, touch, be in the same breathing space as Mike Wheeler. Mike nods to the book in Will’s lap, asks “Can I see?” and Will panics. This isn’t something anyone sees, ever. He draws Dustin, and Lucas, and Max and El and Jonathan and a few times Steve because he acts like some proud mother and always puts them up on his walls and it’s totally embarrassing but Will kind of likes it too.

The point is, he has no problem publicly drawing everyone else, but Mike is different. Mike — Mike isn’t his. Mike is so _ much _ , he’s the kind of person who belongs at least a little bit to everyone he meets, who makes it so easy for everyone to fall in love with him in one way or another. Sometimes Will catches himself scribbling little caricatures of Mike in the margins of his books at school, finds himself drawing the shape of Mike’s eyes in the steam-fogged glass of the bathroom mirror after a shower. _ These _Mikes, the ones brought into existence by Will’s own hand, they belong to Will and Will alone.

There’s too much behind those drawings of Mike. He knows without a doubt that if anyone looks at them they’ll know, they’ll see the love behind each gentle line, they’ll see the adoration in the shading of too-sharp collarbones, they’ll see the endless devotion in the meticulous care behind each lock of curly hair.

For a moment, just a moment, Will thinks about setting his book on fire. A simple solution, he considers, if not for the fact that they don’t have anything flammable on either of their persons. He ends up replying, “It’s not ready yet, but you’ll be the first to see when it’s done.”

Mike smiles concedingly and turns back to his comic.

They spend the night in the Castle like they have countless times before, and it takes Will hours to fall asleep with Mike so close, even head-to-toe as they are. When he finally drifts off, it’s to thoughts of waking up in Mike’s arms. It will never happen, of course, but one can dream.

—

It’s the-sun-hasn’t-risen-yet early in the middle of the week and Will hasn’t slept. It’s been happening more and more lately; nights spent curled over a comic or his sketchbook or doing homework, listening to a mix Jonathan gave him through the Walkman his mom bought him second-hand that past Christmas, sometimes staring into the darkness of his ceiling for so long that the hours bleed together and an irrational part of him is terrified that he’ll be stuck like that forever.

But the sun always rises and his mom always knocks on his door to make sure he’s awake for school, and he calls out, “I’m up.” even as he spends another twenty minutes staring blankly at the ceiling like he could find the motivation to move hidden in the cracked plaster. El always leaves for school first, eager to spend time with Max before class. She ducks her head into his room before she leaves, eyebrows raised worriedly. Will smiles at her, she nods after a moment, and he listens to the sound of Hopper’s truck carrying the both of them away from home.

Will peers at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, takes in too-long hair — recoils from the voice in his head that hisses _ fag _ in a voice that sounds a lot like his father’s — and dark smudges under heavy-lidded eyes and perpetually dry-cracked lips and hates himself so suddenly and viciously that he cuts his gaze away from his own reflection.

He keeps his eyes closed in the shower, like not seeing his own body could erase the fact that it exists.

Will Byers is late to school for the third time that week and he knows that the rest of the party notices — he might be sleep deprived but he isn’t clueless. He sees exchanged glances and whispered conversations and elbow nudges on the way to class. When Mike finally says, “Hey, you know you can talk to us about anything if you need to,” Will thinks about nights spent clutching the supercomm in a trembling hand while he runs through five different reasons why he shouldn’t use it ( _one it’s not an emergency two everyone is probably asleep three it can wait till tomorrow four don’t be a burden five no one cares _) till he finally drops the supercomm and repeats the whole process the next night.

He smiles and digs his fingernails further into his palm and says, “Yeah, I know.”

—

Some nights find Will running up and down his driveway. Some of _ those _ nights he runs till his legs shake and he can barely breathe, and others he runs until he feels like all of the lingering _ coldbadwrong _ is gone from his body. He knows that there’s something wrong with him even after all this time, a leftover bone-deep iciness that never really goes away. He crawls back inside through his own window and bangs his knee on the way in, collapses on his bed as he tries to catch his breath. His skin feels like it’s on fire and he still feels cold.

The thought _ it took my soul when it left _ comes unbidden and he laughs, startling in the stillness of the night, laughs until his stomach hurts and he cries so hard he presses his face into his pillow and cries for a while more.

His mom always used to hold him while he cried when he was younger, was the one who _ shhh_’d him and said _ it’s okay to cry _ while his dad yelled somewhere in another room. For now Will curls up under his blankets and sobs into them like they could take the pain away, and hates himself for even thinking of reaching for the supercomm or crawling into mom’s bed like he always did as a kid after a nightmare.

Will Byers hates himself and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

—

Will finds his mom’s cigarettes in the kitchen. She’s at work and El is off with Max, and Hopper had rumbled off to the office before Will had woken up.

He thinks of his mother’s pale face and shaky hands on bad days, trembling fingers loosely holding a lit cigarette. He thinks of how he’s been seeing her with them less and less, how she doesn’t put them in her bag before she leaves, how the pack sits right in the middle of the kitchen as a reminder that she’s strong enough to handle the world without them.

Will thinks of every pathetic thing he’s ever done and takes a cigarette from the almost full pack.

There’s a lighter buried in one of his drawers, used for candles whenever there’s a power surge and they lose light. Will’s hands shake as he perches on the edge of his bed and lights the cigarette.

He grimaces at the smell of smoke, thinking that he’ll have to open his windows as he brings the cigarette to his lips.

The sudden burst of warmth barely feels like it reaches his lungs before he hacks it back up.

With horrible timing, the supercomm _ beep_s at him and he hears Dustin call out, “Will, are you there?”

His chest is still burning as he stubs out the cigarette and tosses it into the bin on the other side of the room.

“Will, come in, buddy.” Dustin coaxes. “We miss you, man! We’ve got this whole campaign planned, Lucas _ finally _said he’ll run it! Don’t you wanna play a Lucas campaign?”

Will passes by the supercomm and heads to the kitchen, throwing back a cup of water to soothe the scratch in his throat. They’ve been pestering Lucas to DM a campaign for years, but he’s always refused to do so, insisting that they would all ruin his story and he’d get annoyed. Will’s pretty sure that Lucas just doesn’t like the idea of not running a perfect campaign.

Dustin is still talking when Will walks back into his room.

Will thinks about Dustin and Mike and Lucas, maybe even Max and Eleven, a perfect party without their cleric. Will turns the supercomm off and doesn’t turn it back on.

—

Barely a week later, El joins him after he all but collapses on the porch. The days are getting cold and the nights even colder, and Will’s hands shake where they clutch at the fabric of his own shirt. The steps creak as she settles beside him, bundled up in clothes much warmer than his own. Her nose and cheeks are already flushed pink from the cold, though, and he imagines Joyce and Hopper’s worrying in the morning if she comes down with something. And then he wonders if she’s even _ capable _of getting sick because, although she’s ultimately still human, there’s the whole super-power thing. Maybe she has some sort of super immune system?

“Will.” Her hair is just a little longer than his, sleep-messy, and he wonders if he woke her up. “Can’t sleep?”

Will shakes his head, “Not really. You?”

“I heard the door.” She replies, and he nods. El’s always been a light sleeper, easily awakened by the slightest sounds. He makes a note to himself to be quieter from now on.

El drums her fingers on the porch absently, staring out into the darkness of the driveway. “Does running help? With the nightmares?”

“I — ” Will’s jaw _ clicks _ shut. “I don’t have — _ nightmares_, El. I just...can’t sleep.”

“I have nightmares.” She offers, “All the time. They’re…not very fun. Do you think running would help?”

Will sighs, shoving his freezing hands under his armpits. He knows what she’s really asking, in her own roundabout way. “I don’t know. I’ll think about it. I’ll, uh, I’ll let you know if — I think it’ll help.”

El shoots him a smile, leans over to press their shoulders together for a moment before she heads back inside.

Will’s eyes sting and he can’t breathe, there’s this burning inside of himself, fierce and terrifying, his lungs full of smoke and god how he wishes he could hate her, could hate _ all _ of them. He wants to scream and destroy and tear everything apart.

He breathes out and the tight ball of anger coiled in his chest dissipates. The cold rushes back in. Will puts his head between his knees and breathes, and thinks that everything would be easier if he hated his friends — or maybe just if they hated him.

—

Mike knocks on his window a few days before Thanksgiving. Will doesn’t know what time it is, vaguely thinks that it could be anywhere between midnight and just-before-dawn. It’s been a while since he’s seen Mike, or any of the party — sometimes being around them hurts worse than the drag of the blade he pried loose from one of his razors. He gets to school late and avoids them through the day and heads home as soon as the bell rings, shies away from them when they try to approach. El tries to talk to him, sometimes, knocks on his door or sits on the porch waiting for him to finish his laps of the dark driveway. It’s easier to ignore her than to go through an undoubtedly uncomfortable conversation.

It’s unfair, the way he treats them, and he knows it, but there’s this deep feeling of satisfaction the further he pushes himself away, like he’s finally doing something right after all of the bad his very existence has caused.

“Hey.” Will unlatches the window and slides it up, leaning against the sill. Mike blinks. For a moment he hesitates, looking unsure of what to do with himself after having his only entrance blocked.

“Hey.” Mike parrots back. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen you. We’re worried, you know?”

Will smiles and he hates how distant it feels. “Yeah. Sorry, I’m fine, life’s just been busy.”

Mike stares at him blankly. They both know that Will is bullshitting and he squares his jaw and dares Mike to call him out on it.

Mike goes to drag a hand through hair that curls soft against the curve of his jaw before seeming to remember that he has a beanie on. He ends up hovering his hand by his own head for a moment before dropping it with a sigh. He’s bundled up in a no-doubt expensive jacket and he has a horrifically bright red scarf wrapped loosely around his neck, and Will _ hates _ himself for how cute Mike looks with cold-flushed cheeks.

“We miss you, Will.” Mike finally says. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket and seems to hunch in on himself, “_I _miss you. Life just — it’s not the same without you around.”

Will forces himself to breathe through the burst of _ warmlightgood _ in his chest, says “It’s late, Mike. You should go home.” and feels that flutter in his chest wither away and die.

Mike sighs again, drags a hand across his mouth. “Yeah. Yeah, alright. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Will closes his window and latches it shut and pulls the curtains closed as tightly as he can. He keeps the worn fabric clutched in his trembling hands and thinks that it’s the only thing keeping him from shaking apart.

Will stays home from school the next day and pretends that he doesn’t notice his mother’s worried hovering before she leaves for work.

The house is silent with his mother and Hopper gone and Jonathan off in the big city, El undoubtedly already at school. Will pulls the blankets over his head and he doesn’t cry — sometimes he feels as though he’s all cried out — and he thinks that he misses his friends, he misses drawing and reading comics and he misses being happy. He misses having the energy to do anything about it.

—

It’s Christmas break and his mother finally pushes, “please _ talk _to me.” with tears in her eyes.

Will gets angry at first, then defensive, and hates himself for how he breaks down crying in her arms like the stupid child he is.

She _ shhh _’s him just like she did when he was younger, sways with him gently where they sit side by side on the couch, strokes lovingly at his hair like it isn’t greasy and disgusting and in need of a serious cut.

“Mike calls around every night.” She tells him. He already knows this, hears the apologetic _ I just don’t think he’s up for talking tonight, dear, I’m sure he’ll want to talk if you call again tomorrow_. It’s been happening since that night around Thanksgiving and a bitter part of Will just wants him to give up and let go already. “Did something happen, Will? Are you two having a...fight?”

Will kind of wants to cry for a whole different reason because she knows, she’s known for a long time, probably before Will himself knew. She was the one who first gently told him that she would love him no matter what before he even knew what she meant by that, she was the one who held him close when he told her that he maybe liked boys as well as girls, and she’ll be the one who’s there for him when he tells her that he doesn’t think he likes girls at all.

“No, mom,” Will’s voice is thick and gross and disgusting because he can’t stop fucking crying. “‘s not that, it’s just me. It’s just me.”

His mom ends up making the appointment for him to see a psychologist.

—

The winter break before their senior year, Will knocks on El’s door. He rocks back on his heels, shoves his hands into his pockets, glances around nervously. The year between Jonathan moving out and Hopper and Eleven moving in had been strange. The house had never felt more empty before. Even after their dad left when Will was barely eight years old, the house had still felt alive in the way that homes always do.

El had been hesitant to take Jonathan’s room at first, and she’d confided to Will in those first slightly awkward weeks that she didn’t want anyone to feel as though she was replacing his brother. Slowly but surely the room had become her own; cream sheets swapped out for bright yellow ones, free spaces covered in brightly patterned clothes and various fabrics from her designing phase, horror movie posters not taken down but placed side-by-side El’s own collection of magazine cut-outs and movie ticket stubs and countless pictures. There are ones of her with Max, her with the rest of the party, her and Hopper in the beaten-down old truck together. There’s a careful, perfectly even line of polaroids of Max, and the line below it shows Mike, and Will, and Hopper, and it makes him think of the way his sketchbooks are full of drawings of the most important people in his life, but the most care always goes into the ones closest to his heart.

When El swings open her door and bounces on her heels, giving him a curious look, he thinks that he should add an especially detailed drawing of her to his sketchbook.

“I think that running could help.” He says, and El beams at him. She meets him on the porch bundled up in several layers that he laughs at.

“Shut up.” El says, but she’s grinning too, and she breathes out heavily just to see how her breath fogs in front of her face. Will does the same, smiling to himself. She easily keeps pace with him as they lap the driveway. Will feels warmer than he has in a while, and he thinks that maybe he should have asked her to this a long time ago.

—

Mrs. Wheeler — _ Karen, _ she always insists even after all this time, _ just call me Karen _— looks flustered when she opens the door. She’s wearing some kind of exercise looking…..thing, very tight and brightly colored and Will averts his gaze uncomfortably. It’s midday, and he wouldn’t be surprised by how much she was sweating if it had been summer. It’s definitely still winter, though, and Will is bundled in several layers of shirt-under-sweater-under-jacket without sweating as much as she seems to be. His bag feels heavy on his back, even though the only things stuffed in there are a few of his sketchbooks.

“Will!” She cheers, wiping at her forehead with an equally colorful cloth. “We haven’t seen you in ages! You know, Mike calls every night but he says you’re sick, are you feeling better?”

“I — yes?” Will blinks. “Yes, Mrs., uh, Karen. I’m feeling a lot better today. Is Mike here?”

The door opens wider and Mrs. Wheeler moves away, heading for the living room. “He’s in the basement!”

Will catches sight of several people on the television screen as he passes, all wearing the same thing as Mike’s mom in varying different colors but no less vivid. There seems to be a lot of jumping and bending involved and Will shakes his head to himself as he heads down the basement steps, closing the door behind himself.

“I’m _ busy_, mom!” He hears Mike shout before he even reaches halfway down the steps. “I _ told _you not to — oh. Will?”

“Hey.” Will waves awkwardly and instantly wants to curl up and die. “How, uh, how are you?”

Mike slowly puts down the controller. He’d spent all summer saving up for some brand new console, but Will had started avoiding the party before he’d had the chance to see it. “I’m good?” he says slowly, raising his eyebrows. They disappear into his bangs and Will’s heart aches, suddenly and painfully, with how cute that simple action is.

“Right. Good. That’s good, that you’re good. Good. Great. That’s….good.” Will clears his throat, “Actually, uh, this probably wasn’t a good idea. Sorry.”

“Wait!” Mike all but throws himself off the couch. “No! Stay, come sit down, don’t leave. Please?”

Will lets himself be pulled onto the couch beside Mike, and their knees knock together through his jeans because it’s much warmer in the basement than it is outside and Mike is in a pair of striped shorts that would look hideous on anyone else but just look cute on him. He leaves his bag beside his feet, ready to be kicked out of reach if need be.

“You’ll overheat if you don’t take that jacket off.” Mike finally says after the silence lasts a few moments too long. Will ducks his head and pulls off the jacket, shucking the sweater as well. He sighs, feeling cooler around the collar as soon as they’re gone. Mike takes the pile of clothes and throws them vaguely towards the other side of the room.

“Your, uh.” Will clears his throat, “Your mom seems to be…very energetic today.”

“Shut _ up_.” Mike groans, shoving him roughly with his own shoulder. Will laughs, feels something loosen its grip around his heart as the awkward tension melts away.

“And she was very _ bright. _”

Mike grimaces, dropping his head between his knees. “She’s doing her aerobics again. _ It’s winter, Michael,” _ he pitches his voice, “_you know what that means! _ And I say no, because of course I don’t know what that means. _ I have to stay in shape somehow! _Mom, please, no, I don’t need to know.”

Will presses his smile into his hand. “Mm-hm, keep telling me about how your mom keeps in shape during the winter.”

He gets a withering look for that. “You’re lucky you haven’t been around, this is one of her tamer days. Sometimes she meets up with all of her friends here and it’s a whole group of _ moms _ in those _ things_.”

“Sounds like torture,” Will agrees grimly.

Mike makes this little snorting noise, shaking his head, as he throws an arm around Will’s shoulders and drags him in closer. They’re pressed together, side-to-side, when Mike asks, “What’s in the bag?”

_ Moment of truth, _ Will thinks to himself, _ show him now or back off. _ “Just some sketches I wanted to show you.”

And Mike all but lights up, pulling away so Will can lean down to rummage through his own bag. “Really? Oh man, I’ve missed your art! What’ve you been working on? A new campaign?”

“No, um,” Will drums his fingers nervously on the cover, “Nothing like that. This is a little more personal? I don’t know. Here.”

Mike gives him a curious look as he flips open the first page. Will looks away, focusing on the far wall.

Mike makes a surprised sound. Will hears pages flipping and he knows what he’s looking at; sketch after sketch of Mike Wheeler.

There are pages of Mike yawning, laughing, stretching, half-asleep, reading comics, a particularly detailed one of Mike on stage during his latest play, where Will had slumped down in his seat near the back of the room and taken comfort in knowing that no one on stage could see that far into the audience. Some pages are filled with studies of Mike’s eyes from various angles, the way his lips curl when he smiles, the freckles that bloom high on his cheekbones during the summer. Will is particularly flustered about Mike seeing the changes in himself; Will had captured the broadening shoulders, elegant fingers, sharp jaw and strong nose that Mike had spent several years growing into. He hears Mike flip from the first page to the last and back again, making an impressed little sound.

“Hey, this is good.” Mike nudges him to get his attention, nods at the book. “You managed to make me look a lot better than I am.”

Will’s fingers tremble as he curls them into the blanket he sits on. “No, I don’t think I did you justice. You look — a lot better. I missed a lot of details.”

Mike looks at him slowly, says, “yeah?” and Will nods so hard he definitely looks like an idiot. But Mike smiles, ducks his head and his cheeks are definitely pinker than they were before. Mike flips through a few pages, points to the one Will was working on during their last visit to the Castle. “This is my favourite. It looks — good. Soft. You’re good at this art stuff.”

Will kind of wants to laugh because god, how could he forget how fumblingly awkward his best friend is.

Mike stretches out those long long legs, nudges one of Will’s feet with a smile. “I like it when you draw me. You always get this look, like you’re extra concentrating. It makes you look, I don’t know, cute or whatever.”

“Cute or whatever.” Will echoes back, grinning so hard his cheeks hurt.

Mike nudges his foot again, says, “I like your smile too, it’s nice. I think your whole face is nice.”

“Oh my god.” Will hides his burning face in his hands. This is nowhere near what he was expecting and a part of him still wants to burst into flames but in a good way this time. “I think your face is nice too. Or whatever.”

Mike closes the book and sets it aside, and Will peeks through the gap in his fingers to see Mike shuffle closer.

“Hey.” Mike says, voice sweet as ever, leaning close enough for Will to feel his breath against his ear. “Hey, move your hands.”

“No way, I’m staying like this forever.” Will laughs, louder still when Mike tugs on one of his arms and whines, “C’mon, I wanna see your smile.”

Will drops his hands and his laughter gets caught up in a gasp when Mike ducks in to kiss him. It’s quick, a barely-there brush of their lips before Mike pulls away. Their faces are both burning red and Will shakes his head like that could knock loose the smile he can’t seem to get rid of.

“Sorry,” Mike starts to say, and Will grabs the soft fabric of Mike’s dumb sweater to insist, “again.”

Will’s never been kissed before, not really, but Mike doesn’t seem to mind teaching him everything he knows.

—

Will ends up spending the night at the Wheeler’s. Mrs. Wheeler insists on making a proper dinner despite Mike’s insistence that they’re fine with the half-stale pack of chips they’d found buried between two of the couch cushions, which, _ ew_. Sometimes Will really doesn’t get why he likes this boy so much.

(And then Mike will smile or laugh or yell at the television or do that thing where he blows too-long bangs out his face and goes a little cross-eyed, and Will finds himself falling in love a little bit all over again, heart almost painful in his chest with how much he loves Mike Wheeler.)

Mike drags down too-small sleeping bags from the cupboard in the front hallway and zips them together with a flourish, and Will goes warm all over thinking about sleeping that close to him.

They play games until Mike’s yawning more than he is shouting insults at the console, slow-blinking and insisting, “I’m not tired.” like a stubborn child. Barely ten minutes later, Will looks over and sees him passed out against his side of the couch. He shuts down the console and the television and coaxes a sleepy Mike into the sleeping bag on the floor in front of them.

Mike presses his face into Will’s neck, sighing a content sound that makes Will smile into the darkness of the basement. He’s somehow exhausted and too wired to sleep, ends up running his fingers through Mike’s soft hair (something vaguely floral scented, Will’s pretty sure that Mike uses his mother’s shampoo despite Mike’s insistence that he most certainly does _ not_.) as the hours bleed together.

Around the time that he hears the clock upstairs chime its 3am alert, he finally falls asleep.

It’s warmer when he wakes up. Mike has always naturally run hotter than Will, even before the possession. Will yawns into Mike’s chest, half-buried under gangly limbs and trapped by the leg thrown haphazardly over his waist. He feels a little like he’s burning up, hair sticking uncomfortably to the back of his neck and his forehead.

Mike makes a sleepy sound, shifting and rolling away. Will takes the sudden freedom to flop onto his back and breathe, like that could calm his racing heart. He stares at the ceiling blearily and waits for his brain to adjust to being awake.

Eventually, Mike rolls back over and Will follows suit, till they’re both facing each other on their sides.

“Hey,” Mike murmurs, voice low with sleep. His face is half hidden by the one of the many pillows they’re sleeping on, wayward curls falling into a sleepily squinted eye.

Will presses his own face into his pillow, takes a moment to breathe and cope with the fact that Mike’s barely a breath away. They’re pressed together and Will blearily thinks _ I’m dying, my best friend is right there and I could kiss him right now and he’s so warm and I'm literally dying. _Mike’s lips — always so soft how does he always have such soft lips it’s not fair Will wants to kiss him so bad — curve into one of those sweet little smiles and he teases, “you awake?” with that voice that does very good and very bad things to Will’s heart.

“Yeah,” Will licks his lips and clears his throat and it sounds way too loud in the silence of the early morning. “Yeah, I’m — awake, mostly, I guess.”

Mike laughs, a gentle breathy sound, rolls onto his back and lazily raises a hand to push wayward curls out of his eyes. Will peers at him, takes in too-dark-too-long-too-pretty eyelashes and eyes the colour of fall and a mouth that shouldn’t be allowed to look as soft as it does. Mike glances at him and something curls in Will’s chest with how much he wants to kiss the sweet little smile dimpling his cheek.

And then Will remembers — he _ can_. For a moment his chest feels tight and almost panicky because he can kiss Mike, he can hold his hand, that’s his _ boyfriend. _Just to prove to himself that it’s real, he leans forward and presses an off-centre kiss to the corner of Mike’s mouth. Mike makes one of those sleepy content sounds that he’s heard so many times before. There’s a sweet curve to his mouth as he presses closer, sweeping eyelashes brushing against Will’s cheek.

“We should go see the others today.” Mike murmurs, trailing kisses along the curve of his jaw. “They miss you.”

Will’s chest tightens painfully. He fumbles for one of Mike’s hands and squeezes it when he manages to tangle their fingers together. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Will. You’ve been going through something, we get that. Just…you don’t need to push us away, we all want to be there for each other. Crazy together, right?”

“Right.” Will swallows thickly. “Crazy together. Are you...I don’t know if I’m ready to see them. It’s just, like, a lot.”

“Okay,” Mike agrees easily. “Whenever you’re ready. You wanna try to set a new high score and order pizza for breakfast instead?”

“You’re a _ monster_.”

—

“Can girls have girlfriends like they have boyfriends?” El asks. Will blinks, several times.

They’re on either end of the couch in the living room, feet thrown haphazardly into each other’s laps. El’s still in her pyjamas because it’s a _ lazy day_, she insisted, _ we have to stay cozy! _Will had smiled, shaking his head, even though he’s definitely also in his pyjamas despite it being midday. They’re taking turns on the Atari and Will isn’t ashamed to admit that she’s kicking his ass, because she’s El and she’s almost horrifyingly good at every game they’ve played. She’s left Dustin weeping on the floor over losing his high score before, and Max had cheered her on with a dazzling grin and flushed cheeks and —

“_Oh.” _ Will says, “El — yeah, of course. It’s just...small places like Hawkins aren’t always very nice about it. Or, um. Bigger cities either, sometimes.”

El furrows her brows at him, “Everyone else says girls have to like boys.”

Will lightly pushes at her feet when she wriggles them into his ribs. He thinks back to being a kid, listening to The Clash while his mother shouted into the phone. _ “ _You shouldn’t like things because people tell you you’re supposed to, it’s okay if you like girls.”

“Like you like boys.” El nods to herself, turning back to the television. Will twitches.

“Wait, El, _ what_?”

“You like boys, right? Or, just Mike. Isn’t that why you kissed him?”

Will’s cheeks burn and he kind of wants to disappear. It’s only been two days, what the fuck. “He _ told _you?”

“No, but I know what Mike looks like after he’s been kissed. That’s how he looks at you. And, you kind of just confirmed it.”

“Jesus. Holy shit.” Will grabs for a cushion and presses it over his face. “I always forget what a sneaky little shit you are.”

“Thank you!” El sounds genuinely pleased. Will rolls his eyes, tossing the cushion at El. It stops short before hitting her cheek and she shoots him an unimpressed look as it falls to her lap.

“No fair, you can’t use your freaky powers like that!”

“I just did. I also just beat my last high score.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. Come play DnD with the party next week.”

Will blinks, caught off guard. “You terrify me sometimes. Do the others even want me there? I’ve been pretty shitty.”

El laughs as he hands the controller over, “Of course they want you there, Will. You’re our friend. We’ll always want you there. It hasn’t been the same without our cleric.”

There’s a burst of warmth in his chest, flaming and billowing and swallowing him whole. He doesn’t mind being consumed by this heat. “Okay, yeah, I’ll be there.”

The dazzling grin he gets leaves him unable to stop smiling, even as he fails to come anywhere close to El’s score.

—

Will sees Max kiss El after they finish their twelve hour campaign, when the others are wandering around the Wheeler’s house looking for food and stretching their limbs. He’s taking off his purple cloak and folding it neatly when he catches the two of them out of the corner of his eye, looks over just to see Max dart in for a kiss.

They’re both blushing and grinning and Max shrugs unapologetically when she sees Will looking at them.

Max and El hold hands for the rest of the night. Will knows that their other party members notice but none of them say anything.

Will nudges his foot against Mike’s and Mike gives him a curious look. They’re pressed side-to-side on the couch, Mike against the arm and Dustin squeezed in on Will’s other side, Lucas sprawled out on the floor. They’re watching some B-grade horror film that Lucas and Dustin keep laughing at and arguing over in equal measure, while Max and El cackle at the horrible effects.

There’s something soft in Mike’s eyes when Will laces their fingers together, settling their clasped hands on top of their thighs.

Will knows that their other party members notice but none of them say anything. Will thinks of what they’ve been through, all six of them, there for each other through thick and thin. He finally turns the supercomm back on later that night. Dustin cheers, “Will the Wise!” when he hears Will’s voice crackle down the line, alongside a chorus of delighted sounds from the rest of the party. Will can hear El’s laugh clearer from down the hall than through the supercomm and he smiles, something comfortable settling in his chest knowing that she’s so close. Dustin and Lucas argue over something trivial while Max interjects every so often to rile them up with varying controversial opinions, switching sides and taunting and giggling to herself at the chaos she causes.

Will hears El laugh, “Stop encouraging them!” and Max sing-songs, “Sorry, babe.”

Mike says, “Hey, I think Will’s asleep.” and Will’s too tired to bother correcting him, pressing his yawn into one of his pillows. The party all chime in with various, “Good night, Will!”s and he smiles. He falls asleep holding the supercomm, his friend’s quietened voices in his ear.

—

Mike shows up at his door a month later. El answers the door because she’s the only other person home, and Will pulls his covers over his head when he hears them talking quietly in the hallway.

“Hey, Will.” Mike’s voice is the kind of soft it only gets when he’s trying to take care of someone, something that he has always been a little too awkward at to do properly. He tries, because of course he does, but the role of carer has never come as easily to Mike as it does to the others. “You not feeling too good today?”

Will’s eyes burn and his nose tingles with the tears that rise unbidden. He curls up, knees to his chest, each breath rattling painfully through his chest. He’s buried under three blankets and wearing several layers but he’s still achingly cold, skin tingling painfully with the waves of chill that keep rolling over him. Everything hurts and he wants to stay here forever, nothing more than a lump in his bed until he withers away and he doesn’t have to feel like this anymore.

The mattress dips near his waist, and he thinks he feels a hand settle against his side. “Will. Will, talk to me. C’mon, what’s wrong? Did something happen?”

Will wheezes a painful breath. He can’t even explain it to himself, how is he meant to articulate the way that the very idea of moving makes him want to sleep forever, the thought of interacting with people makes him feel shaky and sick, the concept of having to exist and be a person makes him want to disappear forever. His head feels all wrong and his thoughts aren’t coming out right, a jumbled mess too tangled to even begin to sort through.

“Can’t.” Will finally manages to croak out. “Mike, I _ can’t_.”

“Okay, sweetheart.” Will definitely feels that hand moving, a gentle stroking motion against his side that would comforting if not for the layers between them. “Okay, take a deep breath. What do you need me to do?”

“I don’t...nothing? Why’re you here?”

“Will — Will, you called me over.”

Will blinks blearily, eyelashes clumped together from dried tears. He thinks that he vaguely remembers picking up the supercomm when the first wave rolled over him, hands shaking so violently from the bone-deep iciness that he barely managed to keep it in his grip. “Oh.”

“Oh.” Mike agrees. “Can you show me your face, Will? Let me see you?”

Will shudders at the thought, knows that he must look dead inside. He thinks back to showers in the dark with his eyes closed, sickly pale skin and greasy hair, knows that he looks at least that bad.

Still, he forces down the covers with trembling hands, peeking out at Mike from behind hair that he’s been meaning to get cut for months.

“There he is!” Mike grins, smile dimpling his cheek. “World’s prettiest boy.”

Will’s throat feels scraped raw when he laughs, looking away. He bundles up the blankets around his chin, already feeling another wave of cold seeping in. “I look dead.”

“Yeah,” Mike agrees easily. “Somehow still cute, though.”

“You’re not smooth.”

“I’m super smooth!”

“You’re really not.”

Mike is beaming now, “You’re so mean to me.”

“You love me anyway.” Will manages to drag himself up, all but flopping against Mike’s side. He feels Mike adjust the blankets, wrapping him up tighter in them, like he knows about the chills running across his skin.

Will buries his face into Mike’s shoulder, cheeks tingling with the sudden contrast between his cold skin and Mike’s natural warmth.

“So,” Mike says after a while. “I brought some stuff.”

Will makes a curious sound, shivering so hard his teeth clack together for a few moments.

“When you called, you said that you were cold. So I, like, raided Nancy’s bathroom stuff? And I thought, I don’t know. A warm bath might help, or something.”

Will huffs a laugh. “You want me to take a bath.”

“I dunno. Yeah, I guess. It was a stupid idea, I don’t know why — ”

“No,” Will interrupts. He pulls back to look up at Mike, at the nervous pinch of his eyebrows and the anxious curve of his mouth. “Let’s try it. Who knows, maybe the cure to my post-possession is in a warm bath.”

Mike smiles sheepishly, helps Will to his feet and hovers by with his hands outstretched as Will shuffles off down the hall still wrapped in the thickest of his blankets. They pass by El’s open door and she calls out, “Is there anything I can do?”

“I think we’ll be good.” Mike calls back, ushering Will into the bathroom. Will waits by the sink while Mike fills up the tub, repeatedly ducking his hand under the tap to check the temperature.

When he finally deems the bath full enough, Mike crouches down and empties his bag onto the cold tiles, “Like I said, I went through Nancy’s shit, I don’t even know what half of this stuff is.” He sniffs at one of the bottles. “Bubble bath? Sugar scrub? What’s an exfoliant?”

Will picks up a bright pink bottle, opening the cap to take a sniff. “Oh, that’s actually kind of nice? Smells like...vanilla.”

“Bubble bath.” Mike reads the label. “Do I just...pour it in?”

“I guess?”

Mike shrugs, eyes the steaming tub of water, and empties the bottle into it. He ends up having to open the door and pry open the bathroom window when their eyes burn from the overwhelming smell of vanilla, politely looking away as Will undresses. The water is hot, almost painfully so. Will sighs as he slips in. 

He smiles to himself, hands drifting through the bubbles that pile up around his chin. The cold is still there, a low hum under the almost scalding temperature that’s slowly warming him up. His knees peek out from below the water, already flushed pink, knobbly and bruised as always. He thinks of a young Mike Wheeler pressing Sesame Street bandaids to his scraped knees and bruised elbows while Will sniffled through the pain, always smacking a kiss on afterwards because that’s what Mrs. Wheeler would do with her clumsy son’s own injuries.

Mike crosses his legs by the pile of various products, resting his arms against the side of the tub. “Is it helping?”

Will slides further into the water, till it covers his shoulders. “Yeah, it’s actually really nice.”

Mike beams, clearly pleased with himself.

“Plus,” Will goes on, flicking a pile of bubbles at Mike. “The bubbles were a pretty good idea, too.”

Mike laughs, jerking away. “Of course they were. Hey, you want me to wash your hair for you?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean. Why not, y’know.”

Will shrugs, “Sure.”

Mike sorts through the bottles for a moment, eventually holding one of them out for Will to grab.

Will pops the cap and sniffs at the bottle, trying to place the scent, and then it hits him. “_Michael Wheeler_, you’ve been using _ Nancy’s _ shampoo!”

Mike freezes, clearly caught out. “Shit.”

“Roses and peach.” Will reads out, delighted. “I _ knew _ it!”

“Hey, to be fair, you always said I used my mom’s, which I didn’t. So like, not a lie.”

Will laughs as he presses the bottle into Mike’s hand, scooping up handfuls of water to run through his own hair. “At least it smells nice.”

“Right? I mean, so much nicer than the soapy stuff mom buys for me.” Mike agrees, working the shampoo into a lather in Will’s hair. Will leans back into the touch, slowly closing his eyes.

Mike’s been growing out his nails and they scratch pleasantly against his scalp. Will hums a content sound, all but melting into the bath.

“Head back.” Mike says, voice gone all quiet and soft around the edges again. Will obliges, feeling a stream of water rinse the suds out of his hair. Will peeks open an eye to see Mike ducking a floral patterned jug under the water, quickly shutting his eyes against the next pour over his head.

Mike hums to himself, a song that Will vaguely thinks he might recognize, as he massages the matching roses and peach conditioner into his hair.

“Hey,” Will murmurs after a while, Mike’s fingers now just running through his hair in more of an affectionate gesture rather than anything else. “Hand me the body wash?”

“Which one? We got, uh, sugar cookies, coconut, green apple, and more roses.”

Will hums vaguely, sleepily blinking at the ceiling. “Go roses.”

Will yawns as he washes himself, Mike keeping a grounding hand on his shoulder or his back or his arm at all times. The water isn’t quite cool yet and a part of Will wants to drain it and fill it back up just as hot as it was before, but the chill is gone and more than anything he wants to hold Mike.

Afterwards, Mike straightens out the sheets while Will gets dressed, and at one point El ducks her head in to find them wrapped in each other’s arms and beams.

“I’m going over to Max’s, I’ll see you guys later.” She waves from the doorway and they call out _ have fun _ and _ see you later _ without moving from their place on the bed.

“Hey,” Will presses his nose into the hollow of Mike’s throat. “Thanks for, like, coming over and helping. Today would’ve totally sucked without you here.”

Mike smacks a kiss against his hair, drying in waves around his face. “Of course, Will. Anytime. And not just me, the others too. We’re all here for each other, y’know.”

Later on they’ll settle onto the couch in the living room and try desperately to beat El’s high score on the Atari, and Mike will kiss him “as a reward!” regardless of whether or not he beats a level, and Mike will try to make popcorn but end up burning it and almost set the kitchen on fire.

For now, Will settles into Mike’s side and breathes, and remembers that he’s not alone.

**Author's Note:**

> will byers deserves everything good in the world and no you can't convince me otherwise


End file.
